Resolve conflicts in refreshed data

When you refresh data that was imported into a Microsoft Office Visio diagram by using the Data Link Wizard, you may need to resolve data conflicts between the new data from your data source and the old data in your drawing. Conflicts are usually caused by rows that were added or deleted in the data source after your diagram was created.

You can also schedule the data refresh to occur at fixed intervals.

What do you want to do?

Resolve conflicts caused by deleted rows of data

If you refresh a diagram after a row has been removed from your data source, either you can choose to remove the shape that it is linked to — so your diagram continues to match the data — or you can keep the shape, even if the data source no longer has a row linked to that shape.

If there are conflicts after you refresh data, the Refresh Conflicts window opens automatically; as illustrated in the following example.

In the Refresh Conflicts window, in the list of shapes, select the shapes that you want to apply one of the following commands to.

Click one of the following:

Delete Shape to delete only the selected shapes

Delete All Listed Shapes to delete all of the shapes with missing rows

Keep Shape to keep only the selected shapes

Keep All Listed Shapes to keep all of the shapes with missing rows

Note: The Delete Shape and Keep Shape commands are unavailable (appear dimmed) if no shape is selected in the list.

Resolve conflicts caused by data that can't be uniquely identified

If your data doesn't have a unique identifier, or if the unique identifier changes in the data source before you refresh the drawing, the Refresh Data command may not be able to match the correct row with its corresponding shape.

If there are conflicts after you refresh data, the Refresh Conflicts window opens automatically, as illustrated in the following example.

In the Refresh Conflicts window, in the list of shapes, select the shapes that you want to apply one of the following commands to.

Click one of the following:

Select Matching Row to open the Select Matching Row dialog box, where you can determine which row should be associated with the shape in question.

Ignore All Conflicts to keep the duplicate rows in the External Data window. Existing links to these rows are deleted.

Note: If you click Ignore All Conflicts, the rows with duplicate unique identifiers remain in the window, the original data is still stored in the Shape Data dialog box, and no links exist between the shape and the data.